


Priority Mail

by Querulousgawks



Category: Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Friendship, November Fanfiction Challenge, Postcards AU, Pre-Relationship, references to domestic abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-20
Updated: 2014-11-20
Packaged: 2018-02-26 08:33:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2645222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Querulousgawks/pseuds/Querulousgawks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Response to this <a href="http://nightlocktime.tumblr.com/post/102374293746/whatbethsays-more-otp-scenarios-guidance">Tumblr prompt</a>: "person A sending postcards to the wrong address, person B sends them back AU"<br/>Logan Echolls gets a postcard intended for his new neighbor, Lilly Kane. (In some very alternate universe where they didn't all go to Neptune High, but Lilly and Veronica are still best friends, Logan and Mac still run a website, and Logan's still got that white-knight syndrome.)</p><p> </p><p>  <em> “So you…stole, and then replied to, someone else’s mail.”</em></p><p>  <em>“Hey, it was in my pile.”</em></p><p>  <em>“And if mail was just divvied up like Halloween candy, instead of having very clear person-specific labels,that would be a good excuse.” Mac’s voice was as wry and distracted as usual, and Logan scowled fondly at the strip of forehead and rumpled blue hair visible over the edge of the laptop. </em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Priority Mail

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nightlocktime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightlocktime/gifts).



It was just a stock blank greeting card, the outline of a t-shirt on the front and a couple of lines handwritten inside: _Saved your friend from a skeazeball and all I got was this artsy postcard._ Veronica only had one friend with a skeazeball problem at the moment and indeed, her last postcard to Lilly was tucked inside the envelope. _Elementary, Watson._

“Ohhhh.” Even through the phone, she could hear Lilly’s voice light with sudden realization, “I bet my neighbor sent it back.”

Veronica blinked. This didn’t clear much up, but getting answers from her best friend was a process. “Your  _neighbor_  returned my mail with a smartass remark. Are you outsourcing our friendship now? Should I expect your landlord over for a manicure? Oh, God, is the building super going to start nagging me to wear red?”

“If I thought it would help…”Lilly laughed as Veronica huffed in irritation. “No, I think I know what happened. You know that actor I was seeing? Great abs, bad temper?”

“Fidelity problems?”

“Yeah, that one,” Lilly said breezily. “He got a little unhinged by all my fabulous, and we had a  _contretemps,_ ” she rolled the word with a frank glee that had Veronica smiling even as she shook her head, “in the hallway. The new guy next door was collecting his mail, stepped in and threw Connor out of the building. It was  _hot._ But your postcard probably got mixed up in the shuffle.”

Veronica sighed. “And then you, what, hid out on his fire escape? Breakfast At Tiffany’s isn’t actually an instruction manual, Lils.”

 _“_ Oh, he’s not my type,” Lilly said, sounding appalled. “You know my requirements: older, dumber  _and_  meaner than me.”

Veronica was well aware, and her heart ached for her friend’s brand of self-protection. One guy hadn’t been any of those things, but Lilly didn’t talk about Weevil anymore, and Veronica grudgingly respected the silence. They had long ago worked out the rules needed for lifelong friendship between radically different people: Lilly never judged the recklessness beneath Veronica’s good-girl exterior, and Veronica never pushed about the vulnerability Lilly protected with layers of ruthless debutante.

So she kept her answer teasing, now. “And this guy’s what, too smart? Or too nice?”

“Can’t tell yet,” Lilly replied with rare pensiveness, before her voice turned wicked: “It doesn’t say PI on  _my_ door, after all.”

“No freebies,” Veronica said automatically, but she found herself staring at the card in her hand. Brushing her thumb against the slanted, looping  _L,_ weighing the tart words against the unquestioning rescue of her friend, she thought:  _Smart. Impulsive, clearly. Kind, maybe, but not-_ She grinned, shook her head at the profile she was spinning out of nothing.  _Definitely not nice._

 *******

 “So you…stole, and then replied to, someone else’s mail.”

“Hey, it was in my pile.”

“And if mail was just divvied up like Halloween candy, that would be a good excuse.” Mac’s voice was wry and distracted, as usual. Logan scowled fondly at the strip of forehead and rumpled blue hair visible over the edge of the laptop.

“Why are you on my couch, eating my twizzlers, again?”

 “Wow. Pretty unwelcoming to someone who just…” Mac typed rapidly for a moment, then snapped the laptop closed, “restored your server, _again_.” Tipping her head back to pin him with the gaze she usually turned on recalcitrant equipment, she added, “I'd say you must have used up all your charm on your neighbor, but you were apparently just thrashing her boyfriend and committing postal fraud. So.”

“So?” Logan stared back with what he hoped was stony superiority, but was probably coming across as petulance.

“So tell me why you’re twitching about this whole postcard thing, and we can go back to running a business and never talking about our personal lives. Ever.”

He stared down at the pile of bills and magazines, his only mail for the day. Lilly had already left him a thank you card on Kane Software stationary that made Mac squeak and reach out to pet the logo softly, but Logan was more interested in the note: _Thanks for stepping in. Veronica says you’re a smartass – and she would know_. It was several levels –like, secret government lab levels – below stupid to get so invested in someone he’d never even met, but here he was in Sub-basement 7, checking the box each morning with a ridiculous zing of anticipation.

He tried to piece it together for Mac, why it felt like it mattered: “The card actually did get mis-delivered to me, the day before I even saw my neighbor with her boyfriend. It was just a quote, and a signature. I couldn’t remember where I’d seen it at first, but it was from that John Irving book, about a woman deciding that she’d had her last bad boyfriend. ” He had shaken his head at the cryptic message – _what’s wrong with ‘the weather’s here, wishing you were great’?_ -  and shuffled the card aside, meaning to return it later. But the line had been in his mind when he saw the couple come through the door, and something, Lilly’s too-bright smile or the tendons standing out on the man’s hand at her waist, gave the words a new inflection. Like there was a warning, or a plea, hidden in the joke. Like the writer was scared.  

Which, ok, sounded like so much bullshit, shoveled out in front of the most analytical person he knew.  Mac hadn’t actually laughed yet, so he rambled on, “and maybe they would have just had it out in the mailroom, gone up and fucked it out of their systems. But the card made it seem so off that I stuck around. Then the fight got worse, and the guy picked up that paperweight…anyway, you saw the rest.”

Mac shook herself out of what he recognized as listening mode, and grinned at him. “Speaking of, are you sure you don’t want the security footage released to YouTube? We might get into the _second-_ lowest-common-denominator web business on the strength of the hits. Everybody loves a self-righteous beatdown, you know.”

He scowled at her again, but his ire was tempered by the memory of how quickly she’d yanked the camera feeds. Still, he put up a half-hearted protest: “That’s fucked up, for one thing. And you said you deleted them, for another.”

“Anyway! Back to the Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan part of this story,” Mac said hurriedly, and he snorted.

“Whatever. It just felt like…the girl, Veronica, gave me a chance to save somebody.” He industriously shuffled the stack of magazines, and added, “you know, get there in time.”

 _Thwump._ Mac had pulled the pillow from behind her back and tossed it at him, sending the neatened stack fanning out across the counter. She answered his incredulous look with an irritated one of her own, saying, “I hate when you make me repeat your therapist, but I will. Kids aren’t _supposed_ to save their mothers.” Re-situating herself on the couch like a disgruntled cat, she muttered, “And John Irving’s a rambling weirdo.”

Logan couldn’t help but laugh, reaching over to rescue the pillow from the sink. “I know, ok? But his books make my life feel normal, so – “ he stopped. A bright corner peeked out from between the pages of a Land’s End catalog – which was addressed, ironically, to the last resident of the apartment. It was probably just an insert. He tugged on it anyway.

It wasn't an insert. One side bore a pencil sketch of a knight in full armor, charging towards the edge of the page. The other read:

_The lady of the lake hasn’t appeared with your sword yet? I’m sure she’s just backed up. There must have been a lot of damsels rescued that day._

_…Still, let me know if she doesn’t come through.  I owe you one, for Lilly._

_-Veronica_

Fingertips still pressed against the signature, Logan reached blindly for his keys. He tucked the card into his back pocket and whirled, trying to point sternly at Mac but unable to stop the giddy smile taking over his face. "Don't eat all the twizzlers, I'll be back in ten."

"Yeah, you're gonna have to bring back more. Where are you _going_?"

He was already halfway out the door. "I don't have any stamps!"

**Author's Note:**

> The quote Veronica references on her first postcard is from John Irving's _A Widow for One Year_ , which I liked even though I agree with Mac about Irving in general.


End file.
